Moneenageisha Roundabout: Temporary Road Closures

Malice

corribdude wrote: »

I hope they can be man enough to admit and put the roundabout back.

I doubt this will happen. The traffic at that roundabout was nasty at peak times anyway so a wider solution is needed but I for one have no confidence in the ability of powers that be to devise one.

KevR

Was out walking my dog last night and passed this junction. Two cars coming from the Lough Atalia/College Road direction were stopped at the red light (1 car in each lane at the lights). The thing that made me laugh is that they were both stopped about 7 or 8 metres back from the white line and neither of them had driven over the sensors* in the road which are roughly 1.5 metres back from the white line.

They were probably sitting there for ages wondering why the light was staying red for so long :rolleyes: :rolleyes:.

*The sensors detect traffic queuing at the lights.

Sponge Bob

There is a bicycle reservation in the first few metres of each inbound approach road if you look at the road markings .

snubbleste

KevR wrote: »

..They were probably sitting there for ages wondering why the light was staying red for so long :rolleyes: :rolleyes:.
*The sensors detect traffic queuing at the lights.

KevR, where exactly are traffic light sensors located and pointed at?
I once stopped my bicycle at another lights junction in the red area for bikes, there were no cars behind me and the red light never changed until a car pulled up behind. Did it as an experiment really

KevR

They were 7 or 8 metres back from the first white line that you come to approaching the lights, had a good look at the road markings and it was nothing to do with the bicycle reservation.

KevR

snubbleste wrote: »

KevR, where exactly are traffic light sensors located and pointed at?
I once stopped my bicycle at another lights junction in the red area for bikes, there were no cars behind me and the red light never changed until a car pulled up behind. Did it as an experiment really

EDIT: Some traffic sensors are also mounted on top of traffic light poles. Some junctions use a mixture of in-ground sensors and pole mounted sensors.

You can see squares in the ground which were cut out and then replaced (with a sensor underneath). These are at lots of junctions and you will also see similar on some roads nowhere near junctions (these are traffic counters rather than sensors that sense traffic queuing at lights).

A couple of images from google:




From Commuting & Transport - NRA traffic counters on the M8:

snubbleste

Thanks for that info

dloob

Looks like Moneenageisha has the pole mounted sensors.
The junction near thermo king has the in-ground sensors. I think they were only put in recently as part of the moneenageisha changes.
The junction near bodkins has them as well, a 5 second gap in traffic from oranmore direction will get you a green for turing right into bodkins.
Most of the lights out dublin road are sensor operated so don't drive too far into the junction or you could be left sitting there.

dloob

snubbleste wrote: »

KevR, where exactly are traffic light sensors located and pointed at?
I once stopped my bicycle at another lights junction in the red area for bikes, there were no cars behind me and the red light never changed until a car pulled up behind. Did it as an experiment really

If you try to get the bike right over a bit of the wire loop it may be enough metal to trigger it.

Sponge Bob

I thought Galway Cyclists prided themselves on their skillz at going thru red lights

Mrs OBumble

corribdude wrote: »

This junction is a complete disaster. There is traffic backed up every minute of the day from all directions now. Every time I have to drive through that junction, from any road, I am looking a minimum of an extra 3 minutes journey time, when the roads aren't busy, rising to 15 minutes or more during rush hour. ... The council made a mistake, a BIG mistake, getting rid of the roundabout and replacing it with the current junction. .... I hope they can be man enough to admit and put the roundabout back.

I go through the intersection probably 2-6 times each week, usually on a bus, at various days/times. Generally not peak time, though. There is definitely NOT "traffic backed up every minute of the day from all directions". Even when there is traffic backed up on College/Loch Attalia Rds, it does move faster than I remember on Wellpark in the evenings pre-lights.

Roundabouts work well when traffic volumes are lower, and very badly when they're high. So there's a trade-off: you have a RAB and it's really, really bad occasionally and fine the rest of the time. Or you have lights-controlled, and it's bad more of the time, but at least direction gets to move through the intersection regularly, and this can be integrated with other intersections. Re-installing a roundabout would be THE stupidest thing they could possibly do.

Mrs OBumble

kippy wrote: »

Would you like to see pedestrian lights on EVERY four way junction in town? There are FAR more pedestrian used crossings in busier road conditions that could be better served with these ped lights. ....

It would be great to have lights, or even marked crossings on every junction that gets reasonably traffic volumes. I agree, there are other places in Galway that those lights could be even more useful (outside the damn Cathedral, for one), but that doesn't mean they're not needed at this junction too.

kippy wrote: »

The red lights for traffic on all four entrances to the junction mean that peds CAN cross without their own sets of lights.

Pedestrians who aren't drivers find it a lot more difficult to work out how to do this. Lights aren't primarily for nimble-footed students, they're for people with mobility or vision problems, caregivers with small children, children etc. In civilised countries, the lights are made easy for these groups to use.

KevR

dloob wrote: »

Looks like Moneenageisha has the pole mounted sensors.

There's definitely in-ground sensors at Moneenageisha also. I think it's a mix.

corribdude

JustMary wrote: »

I go through the intersection probably 2-6 times each week, usually on a bus, at various days/times. Generally not peak time, though. There is definitely NOT "traffic backed up every minute of the day from all directions". Even when there is traffic backed up on College/Loch Attalia Rds, it does move faster than I remember on Wellpark in the evenings pre-lights.

I live in Sailin behind the retail park and I mainly use the road down from bohermore and wellpark road. Although I have been on both college road and lough atalia in the past few weeks. The traffic most definitely is backed up every minute of the day, the being 7am to midnight for me. Wellpark road always had the lowest amount of traffic of any exit off the roundabout and on non peak times you could just drive almost straight through it. However since the roundabout was taken up I am stuck behind a couple of cars waiting for lights to change almost every time. Even on non peak times now, like 2pm or 9pm, the traffic is often backed up into the retail park. The road coming down from bohermore has been affected just as bad. Stuck for an extra 3 minutes minimum every single time now.

From driving down college and lough atalia roads I have noticed negligible difference although I have had some taxi drivers complaining about the traffic on lough atalia since the roundabout was removed.

I walk this junction as much as I drive it as I have friends up in bohermore and Im often down in the huntsman and I have never had any problem with this junction as a pedestrian, in my 3 years in Sailin it never even registered to me that there was a problem with it. There was no need to take out the roundabout and make Galway city's notorius traffic problems even worse.

Mrs OBumble

corribdude wrote: »

The traffic most definitely is backed up every minute of the day, the being 7am to midnight for me. Wellpark road always had the lowest amount of traffic of any exit off the roundabout

7:37pm Wednesday evening: 10-12 cars stopped at the red light on Dublin Rd, about 6 on College Rd. (they all moved in one cycle of the lights). No queue at the other entries.

Or maybe I'm going blind.

corribdude

If you had've said 7.37 am i might have believed you but 7.37pm is a straight out lie. I have to go through this junction every single time I leave my house and at half 7 on a weekday evening you are telling me there were no cars on wellpark road, and even more outrageous, no cars stopped on bohermore road? That is just a ludicrous suggestion, even more so for a time period when you still will have some people leaving work. You are making up facts to suit yourself.

If this junction was an improvement on the roundabout Id be all for it, as I live beside it and have to use it everytime I leave my house a day. The fact is it's not an improvement, its a downright disaster.

Let me get this straight are you actually arguing that traffic has improved since they took up the roundabout?

mchammer

The only way traffic is easing off at this junction is because everyone is avoiding it like the plague! why because it's a disaster! the fact that there is only one lane coming from wellpark for cars turning left and right and going straight says it all! I've been in queues on a sunday afternoon coming from atlantic homecare and it can take about 3 or 4 turns of the lights just to get out onto the road from atlantic homecare - anyways it's depressing

KevR

Friday evenings is always a nightmare for me on the way home from work - I usually take the 'ring road'. Last Friday I decided to stick on Galway Bay FM for the traffic reports and they were reporting that there was bad traffic (as usual) on the ring road but the Dublin Road was clear.

So I took the Dublin Road instead and it was clear, I whizzed through the Moneenageisha junction at the busiest time of the week traffic wise. There were a couple of cars queueing at a red light from the Dublin Road side as I was approaching, the light went green, the other cars pulled off and I didn't even have to slow down to go through the junction. If the roundabout was still in place I think there would have been a much bigger queue of traffic from the Dublin Rd side and even if there was no queue it would have been impossible to go through the roundabout without slowing (although I do realise this is down to the luck of my timing arriving at the lights but at least it's still possible!).

Mrs OBumble

corribdude wrote: »

Let me get this straight are you actually arguing that traffic has improved since they took up the roundabout?

No: I'm not qualified to make a statement like that, neither do I have access to all the data that is needed to assess whether it's true (which includes data on the ring-roads, too)

But, based on personal observation, I am saying that statements like "it's a disaster 100% of the time" are not correct.

corribdude wrote: »

If you had've said 7.37 am i might have believed you but 7.37pm is a straight out lie. I have to go through this junction every single time I leave my house and at half 7 on a weekday evening you are telling me there were no cars on wellpark road, and even more outrageous, no cars stopped on bohermore road? .... You are making up facts to suit yourself.

I was sitting on a bus, I had a clear look at all the entrances to the intersection. If you really think I'm so bored that I'd bother making up stuff like that, then yeah, whatever, believe what you like. Yawn.

KevR

I passed through yesterday evening at about 6pm and there were no problems from the Dublin Road side, the Monivea Road side or the Cemetary Cross side. Not sure about the College Rd/Lough Atalia side because I didn't get to see that side properly as I passed through quite quickly.

I definitely think the sequencing has improved a lot since they were first installed. I don't use this junction a huge amount but when I have recently it has been an improvment on what the roundabout used to be.

Xiney

I have to say, as a cyclist and a pedestrian, I really love the new intersection.

If we want to encourage people to leave their cars at home, this is a step in the right direction.

what_traffic

agree with Xiney - its actually added a minute to my cycle commute. The roundabout never bothered me as a cyclist because of its small size but for novice\young\old cyclists and all pedestrians its a much easier junction to negotiate.

coldwood92

The roundabount is an fing disater they it is on GBFM anyway and I would agree

Malice

coldwood92 wrote: »

The roundabount is an fing disater they it is on GBFM anyway and I would agree

Me fail English? That's unpossible!

snubbleste

From The Sentinel

The growing cost of the so-called ‘smart lights’ at Moneenageisha Junction is set to exceed €600,000 after Galway City Council continued to spend more than €10,000 a month rectifying the chaos that followed the installation of the lights.

An internal report obtained by the Connacht Sentinel reveals that consultants and engineers known to have provided flawed data for the controversial traffic light system were nonetheless re-engaged by the cash-strapped council and paid additional sums to rectify the logjam they had created.

The cost of the signalised junction up to May 2009 when it first opened was in excess of half a million euro. However, the report from the Directorate of Transport and Infrastructure reveals that the council quickly became aware that “the system was not working very well” and causing knock-on traffic delays at adjacent junctions.

Contractors were recalled at least six times to make changes to the system between June and December last at a cost of at least €40,000. The cost of much of the renovations could not be provided by the council because work was still ongoing, and formed part of a separate contract.


Local councillor and resident Brian Walsh said that the signalisation of the junction had had a worsening effect on the traffic mayhem that existed when it was controlled by a roundabout.
“There has been no improvement whatsoever in the traffic flow to justify the colossal sum that the council has paid out,” he said. “The advice of the consultants involved in the original traffic modelling has to be questioned and I am not happy that additional fees were paid to the same consultants who had provided flawed advice in the first place.”

There is more, who got fired? >>http://www.galwaynews.ie/10881-council-spent-%E2%82%AC40000-rectifying-new-moneen-lights

unJustMary

There has been no improvement whatsoever in the traffic flow

I'm not sure what junction the person who make this statement is referring to, but it's certainly not the same Moneen. junction that I know.

Traffic safety for pedestrians has improved astronomically.

Traffic flow overall has (now) improved considerably too - as far as I can tell from lay observation without any measured data to back this up.

YMMV.

Michifuz

Why the economy and the model will push you on buying a car and then everybody will tell you is wrong and that you get on your feet and walk 1 hour each way to work as the public transport system is not as good as it should be?

Actually now the junction works much better.

KevR

The local media are like a broken record - so-called 'smart lights'. Very cringeworthy.

I think Moneenageisha is a lot better now then when it was a roundabout. Peak traffic flow through the junction is much better, safety for pedestrians and cyclists is much improved. Sometimes, not all the time, people have to wait a bit longer off-peak but that's a price worth paying for the much improved peak traffic flow.

alibabba

I totally agree

Who gives a dam if an extra 40K was spent
The junction is very good these days (maybe coming down the hill from Bohermore is still a bit slow), i pass thru here most days at dinner time coming from Mervue and I get all the way down to the lights before stopping.
A while back you cud be up at Thermo in the queue.